he Centre’s nod to renaming Aurangabad and Osmanabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively has led to more demands in Maharashtra for cities and regions to be rechristened. In fact, some of these sites are also seeing more than one claim, which may lead to a fresh round of competitive identity politics and social tensions, especially with elections to the local bodies, Lok Sabha and state assembly all coming up one after the other in the next two years. There’s also a small, vocal group protesting this bid to create a new history with this renaming spree. Their cause may be strengthened by the Supreme Court, which threw out a petition by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay who wanted the Centre to set up a ‘renaming commission’ to find the original
